


Getting Over Your Pathfinder in Nine Short Months (Or Less)

by beetle



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Awkward Romance, Consent Play, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub, Domestic Bliss, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Humor, If Gil is a Size Queen, Impaired Consent, Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Jaal is the Undisputed Size King, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mpreg, Mutual Pining, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Past Relationship(s), Post-Game(s), Pre-Relationship, Rare Pairings, Relationship Negotiation, Reyder, Sex Pollen, Size Kink, Smut, Unplanned Pregnancy, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:25:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: After a restful furlough on Aya; exposure to a pretty, nice-smelling, but trouble-making flower—the mostdangerousplant in the Andromeda Galaxy, forGil’smoney—and one inebriated night with someone completely unexpected, Gil Brodie finds himself in the Family Way.





	1. Prologue: The Next Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Kinda crack, but kinda not? I dunno. Rarepair, obviously. Mpreg. Impaired consent due to sex-pollen. Some angst. A LOT of porn and kink. Character growth and feels, y’all. And a baby, eventually.
> 
>  **Edit 10/12/2017:** I finally bit the bullet. In reading this over to take up writing it again, hopefully soon, I finally changed all the "blue" regarding Jaal to "orchid-magenta" (or "orgenta," per Gil.) I'm not a fan of purple at all, but I can't keep up with the blue-stuff, because even though this's an AU I don't wanna be dick about someone's skin color. Me, of all people. So, I'm changing all the "blue" to "orgenta" even though I'm not psyched about red-based colors that aren't a solid, primary red. Or blue colors that have any red added to them.
> 
> And maybe I'll be posting the next part of this soon. If anyone still cares, THANKS for caring and reading. Thank you <3

 

 

 

**Prologue: The Next Morning**

 

Late the final morning of the _Tempest’s_ week-long furlough on Aya—and a farewell-party that he suspects may _still_ be going on— _somewhere_ . . . or perhaps he’s just got the catchy, throbby Angara music stuck in his already pounding head—Gilbert Albemarle Brodie rolls over, and grumbles and groans, gritting his teeth. He hasn’t even opened his eyes, yet, and his head is giving him the business at length. His entire body aches like he’s been worked over all night long and his mouth tastes like dick and death.

 

In other words, it’s a _lately_ _uncommon_ state of affairs, but overall, quite familiar. Though, he’d thought to have left such nights behind him in the Milky Way.

 

As he starts to sit up automatically and as usual upon first waking—even if he didn’t have places to do and things to be, he’s still never been one to hang-around pestering last night’s mistake in The Morning After—he clutches at his aching head with one hand and his roiling-cramping gut with the other.

 

For a few moments, Gil’s certain he’s going to be _violently_ ill, possibly from both ends. Usually, the kind of roiling and cramping he’s got going on—too much alien booze, or too much alien food, perhaps? Both?—leads to just that inescapable conclusion. And sometimes, possibly with a lecture from Lexi.

 

Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time any of that’s happened after a long, insane party on a strange, but lovely planet with strange, but lovely people. Not to mention strange, but lovely foods and intoxicants.

 

Gil huffs sardonically, despite his aching head. Then he’s halted in his attempt to remember exactly what he may have overindulged in—in Heleus, and on Aya, specifically, there is an abundance of likely culprits—to cause such an intense reaction, when he freezes.

 

There’s a cool, heavy arm draped possessively over his waist. The kind of heavy and possessive that makes sneaking out unnoticed _less_ of a likelihood, and Awkward Morning After Chit-Chat and The Walk of Shame _more_ of one.

 

A glance along his pale-only-in-comparison body shows it’s a very _purple_ arm. Toned and muscular, lightly-scarred and . . . _very_ purple.

 

Or . . . perhaps sort of an orchid color? Shading toward magenta? _Orgenta_?

 

 _Whatever,_ he thinks, both mortified and disappointed, lost and hurt, _it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been Scott, again . . . and we all know how bloody tiresome and pathetic_ that _whole scene is. Ad nauseam._

 

Groaning again, half-bitterly amused and half-exasperated with himself, Gil shuts his eyes and relaxes back into the mattress of whomever he’d followed home earlier, settling his left hand on his topsy-turvy abdomen and just below the thick, purple arm. The least surprising thing about this . . . return to form, is that his _type_ —brutally-built brawlers, wide, solidly muscular, and conditioned, rather than tall and indifferently lean, like himself—has held true across galaxies and species.

 

He supposes that at least the consistency is something to be glad of.

 

When he finally opens his eyes again, he blinks up at the ceiling in pure astonishment . . . at the _galaxy_ projected on the even surface in whorls and spirals of light and color that are more fantasy than fact. And so _bright_ , that Gil doesn’t even miss Aya’s strident, yellow sunlight, even in this shuttered or interior room.

 

This ceiling-galaxy is so . . . _beautiful_ and powerful. And somehow . . . poignant. So precise and devastating in its heart-deep _impact_ , that it makes Gil long for the home he’d never really appreciated until he’d left it six hundred years in the rearview.

 

For long minutes, he even forgets the insistent turmoil and near-agony of his gut and is simply lost in a wonder that has little to do with the known universe, and everything to do with the artist’s _inner-verse_.

 

It feels like seeing into a stranger’s soul. Like eavesdropping on someone’s hopes and dreams—maybe the ones that are held dearest in their heart. . . .

 

But Gil can’t look away. Just the sight of this ceiling-galaxy is enough to stir long-lost warmth and light in his own blasted and desolate heart.

 

He’s captured by and soaring through this dream-galaxy until the sturdy, cool-smooth Angara body near to his—but as yet only making that arm-over-waist contact—shifts sleepily closer, its owner rumbling and sighing with drowsy contentment. Then, that strong, hard body, and acres of soft, cool-smooth, hairless skin is pressing against Gil’s side with familiarity and ease, but not much intent.

 

At least until the Angara’s morning hard-on, thick and markedly warmer than the rest of his lower-than-human-temp body, nudges Gil’s hip lightly. Then _less_ lightly.

 

Then, with some pretty _pointed_ fucking intent.

 

Gil stares up at the ceiling-galaxy with wide, achy eyes, his breathing gone fast and shallow, his body gone utterly still but for his racing heart and churning gut.

 

Awkward Morning After Convo, it’s to be, then. Gil’s never been forced to make such a conversation with a non-human, but the Angara are generally chatty and pleasant—refreshingly easy and without drama. It may not be fun, initiating the Convo, but at least it shouldn't be too difficult. Gil can probably even converse on automatic, while pulling on last night’s clothes and avoiding eye-contact.

 

But another rumble, this one far more awake than the last, sounds in the still, ceiling-lit room. It heralds a soft, nuzzling kiss ghosted on his left shoulder, but which sends sweet, sleepy fire zipping down every nerve-ending in his suddenly wide-awake body.

 

Then a trail of such kisses wends its way up to his ear, where gentle teeth tug at and a teasing tongue tickles his ear lobe.

 

Gasping and moaning helplessly as his own morning wood—apparently undeterred by his body’s weariness, his psyche’s angst, and his stomach’s rebellion—makes itself heard, he shivers. A glance down from the ceiling and toward his feet, and Gil can just barely make out the wet tip of his own upright, uncut cock beyond the thick, orgenta arm resting on his waist.

 

Said arm shifts as its owner chuckles, low, rich, and promising, then slides his large, rough hand down Gil’s restless stomach—over his tumultuous abdomen—to trail curiously, without self-consciousness or hesitation, through pubic hair that’s tacky with semi-dry come that’s only _mostly_ Gil’s.

 

Then that hand is grasping his rigid and ready cock with a claiming, no-nonsense grip that’s somehow _relieving_ , too, because it’s so cool when the rest of Gil is so damned _overheated_ , of a sudden.

 

He moans again, arching and thrusting up into that hold, and his partner lets him get a fairly even, if slow rhythm going before tightening his hand and taking control of the proceedings with another low and promising chuckle. His teeth and tongue alone are enough to reduce Gil to a largely non-verbal state—his ears are a _major_ erogenous zone—but when that hand sets up a rhythm of its own, tight and demanding and _perfect_ , Gil arches up again, mumbling: “ _Puh-leeeee_. . . . .”

 

With another rumble, hungry and dangerous, that hand is tighter and faster and even a bit hotter. Gil can only gasp and blink up at the ceiling-galaxy—stare at the stars that live in the unknown artist’s _soul_ —as his feverish, confused, but wanting, _so very wanting_ body races toward a release that rather shortly comes fountaining out his tightly-grasped cock: hot and hard and at somewhat greater volume than usual. Gil’s eyes shut even tighter than that perfect grip, but he can still see every star, every nebula, every cloud of that inner-verse, branded on his own soul, as well as his mind’s eye. His entire body is lit up and alive—electric, with hot-cold lightning and shivers, pleasure so great, it’s nearly agony, and a slowly deepening and expanding feeling of safety and satiation that’s akin to coming home. No, akin to a _homecoming_ , after a very long and fruitless search for something one can’t quite identify. Only to find that very thing waiting on one’s doorstep all along. Or perhaps accidentally kicked into the hedges by a careless delivery person.

 

By the time Gil, gasping again and panting, begins to cycle down from an orgasm that has been both more intense and longer than any he’s ever experienced, he’s just cogent enough to feel the soft, reverent kisses placed on his temple. His cheek. His chin. His lips.

 

Then, some eternal time later, when Gil’s body has cooled and his blood has slowed, the kisses turn into nuzzles that soon stop, as well. As he opens his bleary, tired eyes, his left leg is pushed up and out, and a heavy, solid body—bearing the faint scent of last night’s alcohol and some heady, verdant-sweet musk, like flowers and incense—settles between his thighs. In the time it takes for his vision to clear, his body’s efficiently and easily hitched up along powerful, hard thighs, until his ass is being prodded by that thick, insistent hard-on.

 

His thighs are spread even wider and before Gil can even make sense of the orgenta blur above him, or attempt to be the voice of reason, slick fingers are pushing between the cheeks of his ass—which, he suddenly notices, is both wincingly sore and unpleasantly empty—and into his body without delay or foreplay.

 

This time, Gil hisses as he arches up off the bed then grinds down on those fingers. His eyes shut tight, again, as a wavering cry escapes him. The fingers in him are still for long minutes as Gil desperately fucks himself on them, his eyelids backlit by flashing lights and an inner-verse of pure imagination and unique vision, which will _always_ be with him.

 

“So gorgeous,” his lover rumbles hoarsely, his voice distressingly familiar yet instantly reassuring, but Gil’s in no shape to play association games. He’s met quite a few Angara men in the past week, no few of whom had shown more than passing interest in the friendly, flirty human engineer in their midst. “So brilliant and bright, incandescent and miraculous . . . like the heart of a star. . . .”

 

“Please. . . .” Gil gulps again, and there’s no chuckling, this time, promising or otherwise. The fingers in him start to move, slow and _with_ Gil’s arching and grinding. Then faster and to their own rhythm. It isn’t long until Gil is simply a quivering mess in the bed and in his lover’s lap, lost to his own desire, and beyond doing more than taking every thrust that rocks his body and begging wordlessly for more.

 

There comes a point when Gil’s hard and on the edge, again, even though that’s its own agony, after who knew how many times last night. A point when the fingers that feel so thick and good, but which aren’t _quite_ enough to take him all the way there, are . . . _gone_.

 

 _This time_ , when Gil forces his sluggish eyes open, he blinks them clear then _keeps_ them open, focusing on the solid, orgenta blur above him until it takes on meaning, even if that meaning doesn’t make _any_ sense.

 

And just as his brain finishes processing and his eyes widen in shock—and maybe a bit of _holy-fuck!_ dismay—that thick, insistent cock is prodding between his cheeks as he’s held up and held open. The wet, bulbous tip breaches his body without hesitation, and is followed by a pause to groan and mutter Angaran swears. Then, Gil’s gasping, and swearing himself, as he’s slowly, implacably filled.

 

His hands bunch in the messy sheets and his body, despite its instinctual resistance, yearns up toward his lover, his breathing hitching as he tries to decide whether he wants to beg for this sudden, alarming, _amazing_ penetration to stop . . . or for it to maybe keep going, but just a bit faster.

 

Eventually, Gil gives up deliberation as a bad job and just rides out the _sweetsharpfuck!_ invasion, concentrating on his breathing and on relaxing his discombobulated, but eager body.

 

He doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes again until next he opens them. The ceiling whorls above, and below . . . that skewering hard-on’s come to a complete stop inside him. The hot, rounded head is pressing against Gil’s spot tortuously.

 

He blinks and when his eyes open again, a familiar face, dashing and handsome—in a distinctly Angara way: all mysterious, starfield-scleras and big, Rigel-blue eyes, over ridiculously gorgeous cheekbones—is hoving into view above his own: shadowed, but familiar. Somber, but smiling.

 

“Good morning, Gil,” Jaal Ama Darav murmurs softly, leaning down to buss Gil’s lips lightly, but with surprising passion and affection.

 

Gil whimpers into the kiss, surging up into it just as Jaal twitches away, his brow furrowing as he pulls out with a brief, unhappy grunt.

 

“ _Jaal_ ,” Gil breathes, then _wails_ it breathlessly as Jaal drives back into him hard and fast, with a triumphant near-growl. Then Gil’s chanting Jaal’s name ceaselessly, until, with another gasp and a soft, lost cry he comes again, exploding like a supernova, yet spiraling into another’s orbit, stable and purposeful, but daring and galactic in scale. He’s adrift in this sprawling, deep, starlit inner-space, Jaal’s body cool and hot, heavy and strong, on him and in him. _Around him_.

 

Even as Gil flies among the stars, he’s kept by the most solid, safe, and _true_ person—by _Jaal_ —anchoring him to the bed, and the _terra firma_ beneath it. By the lips kissing him and whispering breathless, awe-filled praise. By the strong hands clenching bruising-tight on his wrists and that dense, determined body _pinning_ _him_ , hard and sudden, as a building, rumbling roar sounds in Gil’s starlit silence. . . .

 

As his body is _reclaimed_ , and reassured by the surprising heat and atomic-level _rightness_ of Jaal’s release filling him.

 

Consciousness recedes—drifts away like a wisp on a cosmic wind—and Gil sighs, aching, sore, and utterly content. As Jaal collapses on top of him, his cock softened just enough to slip part-way out of Gil’s body, he grumbles petulantly at the discomfort and emptiness. At the loss of sweet, overwhelming fullness and _completion_.

 

But a tender kiss is pressed just above Gil’s nose, between his eyebrows, and he hums happily, pouting up into the lingering kiss that eventually lands on his bitten lips without seeking more than their slightly-chapped softness. Then he’s wrapping rubbery arms around the heavy, cool body that continues to anchor his own. Jaal tastes faintly astringent, like the ghost-of-moonshine-past, and fragrant, like a meadow full of wildflowers or a sky full of rainbows.

 

Or a galaxy full of stars. . . .

 

As that last bit of wakefulness flickers out, Gil’s weary body is held and _held down_ , nuzzled and worshiped. Sweet sonnets are spoken over and in honor of his exhausted, drained, and wrung-out flesh. Promises of protection and companionship are whispered with the intensity of sworn oaths.

 

“I have you,” he is reassured. “I’ve got you.”

 

Gil’s sludgy brain tries to rally only a nanosecond after his mouth succeeds in doing so. “ _Jaal_. . . .”

 

“You’re _mine_ , now.” He is once more reclaimed, and huffs bemusedly as his body says, _well, that’s sorted, then. Lights-the-fuck-out, Brodie_.

 

And thus, his _spirit_ is free, at last, to soar among the stars, whose brightness is directly rivaled only by the newfound light shining from Gil’s giddy-glowing, overfull heart.

 

TBC


	2. First Trimester: Month One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You . . . look like shite an’ a half, mate,” Liam notes with his usual, undentable cheerfulness as a bent-over Gil braces himself unsteadily on a low, sadly familiar bulkhead—he’s thrown up on or in proximity to it several times in the past week and a half—not too far from the_ Tempest’s _engine room. “Like, bad enough that if whatever you’ve got is catching, you ought to be in quarantine.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Light angst, past heartbreak, and some bromance. Romance, as well.

 

**First Trimester: Month One**

 

 “You . . . look like shite an’ a half, mate,” Liam notes with his usual, undentable cheerfulness as a bent-over Gil braces himself unsteadily on a low, sadly familiar bulkhead—he’s thrown up on or in proximity to it several times in the past week and a half—not too far from the _Tempest’s_ engine room. “Like, bad enough that if whatever you’ve got is catching, you ought to be in quarantine.”

 

Gil squints up at a slightly trebled Liam and blinks myopically. He’s forgotten his contact lenses again and many normally sharp things are blurry, and doubled or trebled. But at least this morning, he hadn’t been _quite_ as busy puking up the contents of his thorax, and had had time to shower and brush his teeth before a shift for which he’d still managed to be eleven and a half minutes late. Not that, as the engineering chief, anyone would take him to task—or could, except for the Pathfinder or Cora—but Gil has, until the past few weeks, never let even persistent, under-the-weather illness make him late for his duties.

 

He prides himself highly on many things, but most especially his ingenuity, determination, and professionalism.

 

And recently, it’s taken those three things in fucking _spades_ to keep from puking, or collapsing, or—for some strange reason— _weeping_ . . . or even all three, at random moments for no descernable reasons.

 

“Seriously, Brodie, you do _not_ look well. You look, in fact, like you’re about to _die_. Horribly. Messily,” Liam persists. Gil snorts, even though it makes the nausea briefly worse.

 

“Keep up that shameless flattery, Kosta, and you’ll talk me into your bunk, yet,” he grits out, sans his usual broad wink. And instead of laughing and flirting harmlessly back, Liam frowns, his brow furrowing with genuine worry.

 

“Really, Gil, you . . . don’t look good, at all.” That frown is deepening even as Liam looks Gil over. “Like, _beyond_ taking a personal day and several naps, and like you should be staking out a spot in the Med Bay.”

 

“Fuck that,” Gil mutters, just managing to stop himself from snorting a second time, trying to straighten despite the intense and near-constant urge to double up and curl protectively around his sore and roiling gut. “Not gonna lose a shift’s worth of work-time just because my stomach’s being skittish about random-ass scents.”

 

Liam’s brows shoot up. “Dude. We’ve literally eaten krogan sloppy Joes and imitation prawn egg rolls not ten yards away from a bunch of three-days-dead kaerkyns who’d kicked off from contaminated water, and—right, I can see now that reminding you of that wasn’t the most considerate move,” he finishes as Gil dry heaves over the bulkhead, nearly doubled-up, once more.

 

“Bloody fucking egg rolls,” Gil groans miserably, his thorough imagination supplying him with an olfactory memory of the—at the time—delightful prawniness and spiciness of said egg rolls. And the Joes hadn’t been too bad, either.

 

Liam’s shaking his head. “Wow, mate. This’s . . . pretty worrying. You and me’ve both got cast-iron guts. So, if one of _us_ is losing his lunch, it’s probably something worth getting checked out.”

 

“’M fine, Kosta.”

 

“Says the man who, when on-board the _Tempest_ , can _always_ be found in one of two places: the Mess or the engine room. And not only have I not seen you in the former recently, but _now_ , you’re not in the latter, either. In the middle of a shift, no less.”

 

Gil closes his eyes and breathes slowly through his mouth. That usually seems to help the nausea. Mostly because though his sense of smell is suddenly insanely sensitive, his sense of taste has rather quickly diminished. He literally can’t taste much of anything that isn’t liberally drenched in Salarian _pkorsik_ sauce or covered with Angaran chilies. Thankfully, neither of those things seems to have an adverse effect on his bitchy stomach. “You make it sound like I’m halfway across the damn ship. I just stepped into the corridor for some nice, fresh recycled air.” And that’s entirely true. The only reason he’s _outside_ the engine room during shift is because out of nowhere, the scents of ozone, alloy, and polymer—of all the guts and workings of the fastest ship in Andromeda and, most especially, its _crazy_ -powerful mass effect drive—some of his favorite scents in the universe, have become more nauseating than even imitation-prawn egg rolls.

 

When Gil opens his eyes, everything’s quadrupled, Liam Kosta included. Might be because, not for the first time this morning, let alone over the past couple weeks, Gil’s crying. For no reason. Again.

 

“Uh. . . .” Liam looks startled and horrified. “Are you. . . ?”

 

“I’m _not_ ,” Gil insists firmly, straightening, but still leaning against the cool and sturdy bulkhead. He runs a hand over his grown-out hair, which has not only grown out of any style—lately, it’s just a stringy mess that hangs lankly in Gil’s face—but out of his preferred color, a golden-y sort of auburn, and into his natural near-black.

 

His roots are more than showing, they’re fucking taking over, and his hair’s gone from trendy-spiky-cool, to messy-floppy-two-tone. With a rather mystifying curl at the ends.

 

 _I’m bloody-well falling to pieces and I can’t seem to slow that process, let alone stop it,_ Gil thinks with a desperate sort of despair as scorching-hot tears fuzz his vision, sting his eyelids, and blaze heated trails down his scruffy cheeks.

 

Even his facial hair has turned against him. His once-sexy stubble is now sort of a scary-homeless-guy almost-beard. At this rate, in another week and a half, he’ll be approaching grizzled-mountain-hermit levels of beardiness.

 

Sniffling, Gil groans again, hanging his head. A moment later, Liam’s hand lands between his shoulder blades, both slightly too small and vastly too warm. That wrongness makes Gil shudder deeply, instinctively, until Liam gets the message and removes his hand reluctantly.

 

“Woulda never had you pegged for the sobbing-type, Brodie,” Liam says kindly, as Gil sniffles and wipes his eyes impatiently. “In all honesty, you seem more like the defensive humor-and sarcasm-type, to me.”

 

“’M not sobbing!” Gil exclaims through renewed tears and on the back of something that, from anyone else, _would_ probably be a sob. He glares at Liam, who holds up his hands in placation.

 

“’Course, you’re not, mate,” he agrees easily, his big, bright smile out in force, but not quite reaching his worried eyes and furrowed brow. “Dunno what I was thinkin’, sayin’ otherwise. Anyway, look, you’ve been off your feed and lookin’ like death for the past . . . two weeks, maybe? Might be you picked up some sorta bug, or something. Maybe you have an iron deficiency or you need more fiber in your diet—who knows? Well, _Lexi_ would, if you’d take your sick arse to the Med Bay.”

 

“Look, Kosta, I’m _not_ —”

 

“Whatever you say, _Brodie_. I’m not y’Mum. ‘M _way_ too pretty to be.” Off Gil’s rolled eyes and covert sniffle, Liam grins. “But I’m not above pulling rank on you to get you to the Med Bay for a check-up.”

 

Gil blinks. “You’ve gone ‘round the bloody twist, pal. _I_ outrank _you_.”

 

Liam’s brows lift gently. “Not gonna be _my_ rank I’m pullin’, as it were. You know _me_ , Brodie. Always yappin’. And I might just let slip around the Pathfinder or the Ell-Tee that the chief engineer is sick, refusing to get treatment, _and_ possibly putting his entire department or even the whole crew at risk of catching whatever he’s got.”

 

Eyes narrowing, Gil stifles a dyspeptic belch as his stomach _really_ starts shuttling around all the nothing it’s got in it. “You wouldn’t,” he informs Liam shakily.

 

Those brows lift a bit more. “Wouldn’t I? You willin’ to take the chance that I’m bluffin’?”

 

The bitch of it is . . . Gil’s not. Even his bluffing-instinct and bullshit-o-meter are off-center, lately. And Liam may not be much of a bluffer—he’ll rather frequently take any and all bets without discrimination, so bluffing is quite useless to him—but he definitely knows how to poke and prod, push and pull. He knows some of Gil’s secret levers better than anyone in Andromeda, save Jill, and that’s entirely down to Gil’s own drunken mouthiness.

 

He’s not one to lean on any shoulder about his romantic woes, not even Jill’s. But in his cups, over games of poker, he’s bent Liam’s ear quite a few times about his . . . relationship, such as it had been, with Scott. Namely about how the promising heart-flutters Gil’d had for his commander from first sight had led rather quickly to the best sex of Gil’s varied life (and _lots_ of it), and easy companionship that was exhilarating and unlike any he’d ever had with a lover.

 

Not to mention an exponentially deepening of the kinds of feelings Gil Brodie had _never_ been prey to. Had _forced_ himself to never be prey to his entire life.

 

Only to find himself falling fast and hard for Scott-bloody-Ryder, and in a way he had no control over.

 

Kind of the way Scott had, apparently, been falling for that shyst-y pilot-turned-smuggler, Reyes Vidal. And not even, it’d seemed, behind Gil’s back. For he and Scott had never _promised_ each other anything. And Scott had never hidden the fact that he wasn’t interested in a monogamous relationship, let alone a long-term one.

 

At least, not with _Gil_.

 

But Scott’s truth had been driven home to the entire universe when, after defeating the Archon, Scott Ryder, bloody and barely ambulatory, had staggered off the _Tempest_ , past his crew and well-wishers—including a hopeful Gil whose heart had been soaring and sinking, all at once—to an unusually solemn Reyes Vidal.

 

Vidal had smiled uncertainly, but genuinely, and opened his arms. Without saying a single word, Scott had stumbled forward. _Not_ into those arms, but falling to his knees at Vidal’s feet and hugging the smuggler’s hips, his face pressed to Vidal’s abdomen as he shook and shuddered and breathed.

 

Vidal’s hands had slowly, deliberately settled on Scott’s shoulders, light then tight, and the Pathfinder had looked up into Vidal’s pale, shining eyes. Neither of them had spoken aloud, but even Gil, gobstruck and heartbroken as he’d been, had been able to grok what had passed between them.

 

In the months since, Gil has kept his distance from the couple and from Scott, deflecting all attempts by his superior to have a heart-to-heart. And eventually, Scott had stopped even trying. He’s been so caught up in his duties and Vidal that not having to deal with _Gil’s_ lingering feelings—which Gil had never hidden, as he’d had no idea how to hide feelings which he’d never before felt—is probably a relief. And their professional relationship certainly hasn’t changed.

 

Their personal one, however, is now nearly nonexistent, and not for Scott’s lack of trying.

 

But in the end, Scott had been easy-going and generous, and has acceded to Gil’s unspoken wish to have some distance between them.

 

Now, the thought of Scott having to shift his attention from Pathfinding and from Reyes-bloody-Vidal, is as sobering and bracing as a dash of icy water. It gives Gil the fortitude to straighten his bent-over body and tamp down his nausea, if only for a little while.

 

“Fine, whaddaya want to keep your lips zipped?” Gil demands flatly. Liam blinks and shakes his head.

 

“I _want_ you to take better care of yourself, arsehole,” he says, as if Gil’s being obtuse. This time, _Gil’s_ the one to blink. More tears, also unbidden, fall from his wide, tired eyes. His shoulders sag and he groans softly, hanging his head. Liam reaches out and hesitantly grasps his shoulder. Then, when Gil doesn’t react as inimically as before, he clears his throat gruffly and pulls Gil into an uncomfortable, yet comforting hug. One with lots of manly back-patting and no contact below the sternum.

 

Rolling his eyes, Gil sniffle-giggles into Liam’s shoulder as he holds onto his closest friend—aside from Jill, of course—in the universe.

 

“Tell ya what, Billabong: You skive off for the rest of this shift—the rest of this _day_. Delegate some of the insane amounts of work you insist on shouldering to your minions. Give ‘em summat to do besides collect dust and unearned paychecks.” There’s a smile in Liam’s voice and for some reason that makes Gil sniffle even more. Makes the backs of his eyes burn fiercely with tears awaiting their moment to escape. “Take the day, and then tomorrow, I’m gonna stop by your quarters first thing, to check on you. And if you still seem even a _tic_ peaky, I’m gonna incapacitate you, if I have to, and drag your unconscious arse to the Med Bay.”

 

Liam’s breath and voice are warm, in Gil’s hair and ear, respectively. It’s this, more than anything, that undoes him completely. Makes him agree to Liam’s kind, but unwavering edict without even the pretense of a fight.

 

And anyway, Gil’s far too tired and drained for pretenses or fights.

 

“Okay. I . . . yeah, okay.”

 

“ _Okay_?” Liam sounds surprised—even leans back just enough to look up into Gil’s face. His expression is _really_ concerned, now. “That’s it? Just . . . _okay_? No sass or backtalk?”

 

Gil shrugs and sighs, reaching up with his thousand-pound right arm and its hundred-pound hand to rub his eyes. He’s absolutely knackered. “Nope.”

 

“That . . . is the most horrifying thing, yet. Gil Brodie, sans sass? That’s a star without gravitational pull, man.” Liam’s only half-joking. Maybe not even half. His eyes are really wide and obviously cataloging Gil’s wan, drawn, beardy face. “Whatever you’ve got, it might be _terminal_ , mate.”

 

Gil smiles a little, even though the joke touches a bit too close to home for his comfort. After all, it’d started just like this for his Mum. Little discomforts and ailments that she only noticed because they were so small and irritating, but legion. But still, she’d have never gone to hospital without Gil nagging at her. Like so many of Aboriginal Australian descent still did, hundreds of years after British colonization, Dahlia Brodie’d had a random, but powerful distrust of Western medicine. And, after getting bailed on by Gil’s father, a charming, European mutt of mostly-French ancestry, she’d sunk further into the old ways that even the most hardcore Aboriginals were leaving behind with sighing resignation.

 

Not that either the old ways, or so-called Western medicine, had done much to save her. The latter had removed cancerous cells almost as fast as her body had made them. But even so, it’d been too late. The cancer and the damage it’d caused had been systemic.

 

Gil hadn’t gone against her advance directives. There’d been no heroic measures to keep brain-dead meat that’d once housed the most sparkling and magnetic person he’d ever known alive. No fight with other relatives or with the State to keep them from going against Dahlia’s final wishes, no. When the last round of treatments was done, and she’d shown no appreciable remission or improvement, Dahlia had, with Gil’s help, gotten herself released from hospital and gone home.

 

Home to the land and the house she’d secured for herself and her only child—who’d inherited his father’s spiky hair, charming smile, and _itchy feet_ , on top of the walkabout-spirit of his mother’s ancient people—who hadn’t lived at home since he was sixteen. Said child had been home fewer than a handful of times in the thirteen years between striking out on his own and his mother’s final days.

 

And she’d spent those final days in the arms of their remaining family, who were really mostly friends of similar circumstance. With Gil and her few close friends by her side, Dahlia Brodie had gone to join their ancestors in the _Dreamtime_ , on a river of truly _righteous_ hallucinogens, as well as the painkillers that the law kept in reserve for the terminal.

 

Gil had done his grieving and reminiscing, had given himself over to his many regrets, and acknowledged his less than stellar performance as a loving and dutiful son. He’d accepted that the past was immutable and unchanging. A stone to either brace one’s back against while facing the future . . . or a wall against which to bloody and break oneself fruitlessly. As ever, Gil wound up doing a bit of both for a few drunken weeks, before finally girding himself for the former, and moving forward and on.

 

Before the month was out, he’d given her house, furniture, and land away to a young, but large family, with a quiet, keen-eyed Aboriginal mother and an expansive and warm Greek father. The children were dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and dark-haired, energetic and gorgeous. And they’d never lived on land or had a home with so much room.

 

Giving the place to someone who could actually appreciate it had made Gil feel less guilty about the fact that he never wanted to see it or be reminded of it again.

 

And even now, ten years later—if one factors out the six hundred-plus years of cryo-sleep—Gil doesn’t miss the old place. He _never_ misses places . . . or didn’t used to. Now that he’s so far from everything he’d ever found familiar and comforting . . . all the things he’d once scorned as dull and been-there-done-that. . . .

 

Things have changed. Places are starting to get under his skin. Places and . . . people. He can’t even remember what it feels like to go through life powered only by curiosity and desire, and a need to always be _moving._ He can’t recall how it feels to not give a fuck about anything or anyone beyond his own fickle whims. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to live life on the edge not because he’s addicted to the thrill, but because he’s so numbed to everything, that the only way to feel is to constantly be courting some extreme or other, be it professional or personal.

 

He doesn’t remember how it feels to care about _nothing_ . . . not even himself.

 

Getting tangled up in the Andromeda Initiative had been the best and worst thing that’d ever happened to him. Simultaneously and all the time, from the very beginning, to this moment, looking into Liam’s earnest and caring eyes. The _wrong_ eyes, unfortunately for Gil, but then that’s hardly _Liam’s_ fault. Not his fault that when Gil imagines looking into the _right_ earnest, caring eyes, they aren’t dark, but a faded-pale sort of grayish-brown that’s both weary and hopeful. That's set in a stark, angular face that’s closer in complexion to midnight, rather than Liam’s boyish, pug features and anodyne milk chocolate coloring. The _right_ _face_ — _remarkable_ face—is surrounded by neat, skinny ‘locs only a bare shade darker than that midnight skin, and hanging to halfway down a back that’s born the weight of worlds.

 

Though sometimes, if Gil lets his already wandering mind unfocus further, that stark, dark, perfection of angles changes. Shifts in color, hue, and intensity. The eyes lighten from that weary-pale, hopeful-sere brown, to a brighter, cooler color. Not the mesmerizing gold that so many turians and krogan possess, nor the asari blue or green, nor a salarian jet . . . but an upper-atmo blue so true and pure, so unleavened by _any_ other color, primary or otherwise, that it makes the sky look like the refraction off patina'ed bronze.

 

 _Those_ eyes . . . and, not far below them, those _cheekbones_ . . . that slight nose and below _that_ , the unreserved smile that makes the eyes light up even more. . . .

 

And, oh, the hard, conditioned _strength_ of those muscular, drool-worthy thighs and the matching— _spectacular_ —ass. Not to mention brawny, cool, orgenta arms—and shoulders and biceps—flecked with scars and a few burns, some worse than others. And even more of that perfect, vivid skin covering a body as firm and formidable as any Gil has ever had the pleasure of knowing.

 

The easy and subtle cording of those forearms, and the care and gentility in those callused _hands_. . . .

 

Gil shivers as his stomach calms suddenly, even though his heart begins to race. Breathing is quickly something he _has_ to focus on or else not get enough oxygen to remain conscious, let alone upright. And if he passes out, there’ll be no avoiding the Med Bay, _then_.

 

“Could be it _is_ terminal. Whatever it is,” he finally agrees with quiet resignation of his own. Oh, he’s been screened for cancer within the past year, but he knows from close experience just how insidious and _fast_ a disease it can be. How . . . unbeatable once it sinks its claws in. “And if it is, knowing’d be pointless, since I’m in no shape to fight for the pathetic shambles that I call my life. I doubt even Lexi could cure what’s ailing _me_.”

 

“Nah, mate, nah. Don’t take on, so,” Liam instructs as he shifts a bit so that he’s got an arm around Gil’s waist and is leading him away from engineering. Gil leans into Liam just a bit. He’s short, but sturdy. “A good day and night of sleep in your comfy, messy bunk’ll do wonders for you, son. And even if it doesn’t, the brilliant advances of modern medicine’ll kick the arse of whatever’s got you on the ropes.”

 

Gil grunts, and lets Liam steer him away from his responsibilities, his arm shifting to Gil’s shoulders, even though he has to reach up to make that happen. “At least one of us is certain.”

 

“Shoulda been a doctor, me, not a cop.” Liam preens then chuckles. “C’mon, Engineer Brodie, let’s get you to your bunk and tucked in.”

 

Gil grunts again, shuffling along gingerly—fighting not to ask Liam to carry him—every step of the way.

 

#

 

Hours later, Gil is bolting up out of a restless sleep, panting and shaking, hot and cold.

 

He’s both harder and more nauseated than he’s ever been in his life.

 

With a confused and miserable moan, he rolls out of his bunk, barely gaining his feet, and crab-walks to the door. His stomach is roiling and gurgling audibly, his dick tenting out the front of his tan, drawstring sleep pants. He’s covered in goosebumps that do nothing to hide his rather extreme pallor. Like a zombie or some sort of automaton, his body drags him down the brief hall that leads to a more traveled corridor.

 

Still only half awake, Gil can only imagine his bare, but apparently determined feet are carrying him to the nearest bathroom. But when they pass that bathroom without allowing him to stop—and another bathroom, besides—Gil blinks his way to a fuller consciousness that he’s still only a passenger in.

 

Everything seems bright and loud, even though at her worst, the _Tempest_ purrs like a bloody kitten, thanks to Gil. And at the moment, the ol’ girl’s at the top of her galactic game.

 

He passes no one on his mystery journey. Indeed, the very lack of people going to and fro tells him that he must have slept for quite some time, because it’s third-shift, just from the quiet and stillness.

 

It isn’t until he turns a corner that leads to an out-of-the-way, rather unpopulated part of the ship, that he starts to balk, because . . . he knows exactly where he’s going, of a sudden. Knows, and wants, even as he resists.

 

But resisting the demands of his feet—of his entire _body_ , except for his sludgy brain—makes the nausea ramp up so intensely, he staggers, dry heaving in the middle of the corridor.

 

 _C’mon, Brodie,_ he chastises himself with pathetic desperation _, it was one night, one month ago. And, yeah, a good portion of a morning, too. And he’s a nice guy—a_ fantastic _lover, dominant and intuitive . . . possibly the most epic fuck you’ve ever had—but that doesn’t mean that a night of shitting where one eats is something that ought to be perpetuated. You’ve spent the past four weeks avoiding the man so completely, he probably doesn’t even remember your name. You_ can’t _show up on his doorstep out of the blue and . . . what? Beg him to fuck you? Distract you? Hold you? Just_ talk _to you, so you feel less utterly forgotten and alone?_

 

“Actually, I’d settle for a kind glance and a smile,” Gil mutters to that cynical voice, leaning against the left wall even as he drags himself onward.

 

When he reaches Jaal’s “quarters,” turning a final corner at the end of a narrow corridor, he lets out a sob of relief and frustration.

 

The first thing he notes is a scent that’s familiar and long-missed . . . _perfect_ : heady, verdant-sweet musk, like flowers and incense, with faint hints of cool water and tempered metal. _This scent_ is the one he’s been _needing_ . . . the one his body _craves_ , not just tolerates. The moment he breathes it in, his nausea begins to abate so fast, it brings tears to his eyes and weakens his already rubbery legs.

 

The second thing Gil notices is that Jaal isn’t there.

 

The close, but not cluttered area is very much a _Jaal_ -space, despite Jaal not being present. There are souvenirs and mementos of missions and of home, partially completed creative projects—including what looks like a knitted shawl. Some keenly curving blades that look sharp and lethal, for all that they’re clearly ceremonial, decorate the walls. A few data pads are laying around near Jaal’s neatly-made pallet.

 

Unaware that there are tears once more rolling down his scruffy, drawn face, Gil staggers toward that makeshift bed, nausea lessened enough to be forgotten for the sudden, dull ache of his rigid cock and heavy balls.

 

He falls to his knees on the thin, but firm pallet, too shaken and tired and needy to ask himself what exactly he’s doing. His vision doubles briefly as he stares down at Jaal’s pillow and his stomach gives a moody sort of lurch.

 

With a grumble, Gil lowers himself to the pallet, on top of Jaal’s quilt, and lays his spinning, weary head on the pillow, which smells of Jaal and of dreams. He curls up on his side in fetal position, shaking and shivering, wanting and willing to wait. His nausea continues to fade, in a waxing/waning way, until it’s gone almost completely. And, certainly, enough to let Gil close his burning, leaden eyes. So, that’s what he does, one hand resting on his abdomen, the other cupping his near-agonizing hard-on to keep any accidental stimulus from setting it off.

 

He imagines that Jaal’s lying behind him, spooning with him, that cool, strong _body_ pressed to his back, one possessive arm draped over Gil’s waist. He imagines cool, tender _kisses_ on his overheated neck and almost fevered brow, and Jaal’s voice in his ear, saying silly, utterly ridiculous, poignantly _right_ things that make it okay for Gil to close his eyes. To sleep. To _stay_. . . .

 

The next time he opens his eyes, it’s to see Jaal kneeling next to him, staring down at him with wary incomprehension and solemn hope.

 

“Are you a dream?” the Angara asks quietly, the second before Gil would have.

 

“Dunno, anymore. Maybe. Never feel real, lately. Maybe never felt real, _ever_ ,” Gil admits around a yawn, then tries to smile. He must not do too good a job, from the look of concern that settles on Jaal’s handsome, emotive face. From the trails of wet warmth that blaze down his own cheeks and nose. “ _You_ a dream, then?”

 

Jaal tilts his head curiously. “Hmm. Am I something you’re likely to dream up, Gil Brodie?”

 

“Is that a trick-question?” Gil asks dryly, giving Jaal a once-over. The Angara is dressed in nothing but some sort of soft, clinging black shorts that terminate at mid-thigh. And those thighs are still . . . sculpted and mouth-watering.

 

Drawing a slow, shaking breath, Gil lifts his heavy arm and holds out his hand. Jaal’s gaze shifts to it, from Gil’s face. He studies the offered appendage in seeming bafflement.

 

“Look, I dunno about _likely_ —my taste hasn’t always been the best nor my imagination that good. But,” Gil falls silent again, too drained and weary to temporize or play word games—to charm or lie. And anyway, Jaal seems like the type who prizes honesty the way others would prize flattery. “I dunno _what_ I dream, anymore. I only know that . . . that it’s taken everything in me to fight the damned biological imperative that finally dragged me here, kicking and screaming. I don’t even remember what it’s like to feel remotely right in my own skin, except that the last time I did, it was on Aya. With you.”

 

Lowering his gaze from Jaal’s attentive one, Gil sighs. “I know I haven’t got any right to ask you for anything. Especially with the way I’ve been avoiding you. My lack of chill regarding our . . . fraternization on Aya has been immature and mortifying. At least to me. And I’m . . . so sorry. Not just because I’ve missed you, and even just the _scent_ of you settles and calms me in a way I’ve never been settled or calm. But because you deserve . . . better. The _best_. And I know that ain’t me, but . . . you’re branded on my bones, Jaal Ama Darav. You linger on my skin. You’re . . . in my head. In my _gut_. In my hea . . . well. The last time I let a guy in half this deep, it didn’t end well for me. I doubt it will, this time, either, but . . . but I can’t . . . I _need_. . . .”

 

Risking a look back up, into Jaal’s patient eyes, blinking as more tears roll down his face, Gil shivers and starts to withdraw his hand. It’s tremoring minutely and his ragged nails are bitten-down almost to the quick.

 

“I—damnit, none of this’s _your_ problem. Messed up my own life, made my own mistakes. Can’t expect _you_ to fix ‘em. To put your arms around me, and keep me safe and secure, and . . . just _keep me_. Been telling myself that for the past month, but it just won’t bloody _sink in_.” Gil chuckles mirthlessly, sitting up and staying that way despite the blurry, slowly spinning room, the throb of his head and groin, and the warning jolts in his stomach. He’s both unsurprised and unashamed that he’s still so obviously, unabashedly _hard_. It’s nothing Jaal hasn’t seen in his bed before, after all.  “Twice as stupid as I am stubborn, me.”

 

Gil’s levered himself up to his knees, swaying and listing all the way, when Jaal’s hand lands lightly on his thigh. He meets that bright, purer-than-starlight gaze, all heat and intensity and hope, and gasps in a sharp breath.

 

Then Jaal’s other hand is coming up to Gil’s stubbly face, cupping it tenderly and affectionately.

 

“Stay,” he says, soft and simple and certain. Gil shivers so deep, it’s technically a shudder.

 

“I don’t _want_ to want to,” Gil says lowly, holding Jaal’s gaze. “Don’t want to _need_ to. _Stay_ , that is. But . . . I _do_. I need it—need _you_ —like I need my next breath in. Everything about you, your eyes, your skin, your voice, your smile, your _scent_ is right in a way that I’ve given up trying to explain or rationalize away.” Sighing and nodding his head, but not enough to dislodge Jaal’s cool, rough hand, Gil smiles a little. “I need you, but I . . . I _won’t_ impose on you. It’s not _your_ lookout that I've imprinted on you like some daft duckling. And I . . . I can go back to my own bunk, if you prefer—if you need time and space to—”

 

Jaal’s thumb brushes across Gil’s bitten lips, stilling them. Then he leans in close, his forehead lightly touching, then leaning against Gil’s and its covering of messy, grown-out hair.

 

“ _Stay_ ,” he says again, cupping Gil’s face in both hands and heaving a soft, but rumbling sigh. Swallowing a lump that might be a mid-sized frog, or possibly his own heart, Gil nods once, slightly, his breath juddering out of him in fits and starts.

 

“Okay,” he replies in a thick voice as tears roll down his cheeks again. He can sense Jaal’s smile as the other man strokes his face with both thumbs and busses his lips. Then the tip of his nose. Then his lips again, lingering until Gil moans, genteelly, but desperately, looping his arms around Jaal’s neck.

 

He clutches at Jaal urgently and tight, gasping as the heavier man bears him back down to the pallet, settling between Gil’s automatically spread thighs. His body is so solid and weighty and perfect, that Gil arches up into it as much as he can, with a groan that’s as easy to read as a billboard. Jaal’s abs are a firm, but yielding surface to grind his aching cock against and _Jaal’s_ cock is a steadily hardening promise that prods at Gil’s balls, then beyond them, despite the drawstring pants. And the black shorts Gil wants to rip off.

 

With his teeth.

 

“You are so extravagantly _warm_ ,” Jaal notes with gentle wonder, leaning up to look into Gil’s eyes. One hand is still cupping Gil’s face and the other has snaked its way past the waistband of Gil’s pants to stroke his flank. “I have thought of little else in the past month but the sweet, intense warmth of you . . . of the _heat_ that beckons to me from the very core of you, like the gravity that binds together even the farthest-flung arms of the galaxy.”

 

Gil closes his eyes for a few moments—he’s flustered and quite overwhelmed, as no one’s ever said anything like that to him before—and fights another onslaught of tears.

 

“You don’t have to say that,” he tells Jaal stiffly. “Don’t have to . . . to be _kind_ to me, or be sweet. Even if I deserved it, I wouldn’t know what to _do_ with that from someone I’m . . . fucking around with.”

 

“I _always_ want to be kind and sweet to you, Gil Brodie. But this . . . is not that.” Jaal frowns a bit, before leaning down to press a chaste, somber kiss to Gil’s mouth. “This is me being selfish and possessive and greedy. This is me laying claim to and holding on to what I would make _mine_ at any cost. And yet . . . even now, I cannot lie to you. When I say that you are _all_ the light, heat, and gravity of a galactic center and that I fall ecstatically into you, I am merely stating the truth as my heart knows it. I am _not_ simply being kind and sweet to you, though it would be my great honor and pleasure to be the one you turn to for such reassurances. At this moment, I am merely being _honest_ , at last, with myself and with you, about how I feel. How I _have been_ feeling since Aya.”

 

Gil’s mouth opens and for a minute, nothing comes out but short, shaking breaths. Finally, he smiles, crooked and without artifice.

 

“You’re, like, the _only_ thing in the galaxy that _doesn’t_ make me wanna puke,” he says without thinking and Jaal blinks, then laughs, long and rich and loud.

 

Bemused and blushing, Gil chuckles, too. “Well, it’s true. I’m no poet, but that’s _my_ truth, plain as popsicles. You smell like _all_ the good things and you make me so bloody _hard_ , I can’t even think past wanting you in me.”

 

Suddenly, Jaal’s not laughing, anymore, but growling into another kiss, this one bruising . . . and dizzying, like leaning over the edge of a high cliff. By the time it ends, Jaal’s shoved down Gil’s sleep pants as well as his own shorts, and they’re thrusting and shimmying frantically for friction. Sliding wetly against each other in the viscous mix of Gil’s precome and the natural lubrication Angaran males secrete when aroused.

 

“Jaal . . . bloody _hell_ , _Jaal_. . . .” Gil gasps as Jaal rocks down against his body, hard and fast, his girthy cock prodding past Gil’s balls ever more insistently.

 

“You are galaxies of wonder,” Jaal whispers. Gil’s eyes flutter shut and he lets sweet sensation submerge him. “Whole universes of beauty and splendor that I can nonetheless hold in my arms, even as I lose myself completely in the brilliant, glimmering darkness and radiant, everlasting starshine that exists within you. That _comprises_ you . . . and is deeper by far than the distance between one end of eternity and the other.”

 

Moaning and hissing, arching up into the heavy body pinning him so effortlessly, Gil clutches hard at Jaal’s thick shoulders knowing he can’t keep—he’s never been able to, after all—but trying his best to, anyway. Trying to hold onto the knowledge that _Jaal_ wants, for the moment anyway, to keep _him_ , too.

 

“Say it again,” he pleads, tears standing out in his eyes as he blinks up into Jaal’s. “Please . . . say it again? I _need_. . . .”

 

For a moment, the Angara looks confused, but then he smiles and leans their foreheads together again.

 

“ _Stay_ ,” he murmurs and, with a broken-open cry, Gil surges up into a kiss that doesn’t end until they both gasp and groan as Jaal pushes into him with deliberate care and steadiness. The only sounds, thereafter, but for more gasps and groans and grunts—but for the sounds of flesh on flesh and flesh _in_ flesh—are the soft sobs that Jaal’s sweet, intent, _intense_ possession of him wring from Gil’s throat.

 

Then, finally, after some time has passed, near-simultaneous cries of completion and satisfaction.

 

And eventually, there isn’t even that. There are just the nearly inaudible sounds of their deep, even breathing. Then Gil’s light snores as he gets his first restful sleep in far too long. Jaal’s spooning behind him, his big arms tight around Gil’s limp, pliant form—keeping him and protecting him—and their legs tangled together. One soothing, cool, orgenta hand rests on Gil’s for-once tranquil stomach, as if it’s never belonged anywhere else.

 

Gil’s dreams are full of stars. Of galaxies on ceilings. Of bright darknesses that spiral forever inward. Of all the things he’s ever wanted, but never dared to let himself hope for. For the first time, he can see those wants clearly: by the precious light of the endless universe around him, and by the glow of the wary, but . . . _hopeful_ heart beating _within_ _him_.

 

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback rules!  
> ::points at comment box::
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com), so come scream at me!


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